A Festivus for the Rest of Us!

These next couple days I will be recapping our long Christmas weekend! Today, I will start with December 23rd!

Christmas is my favorite holiday, and I truly enjoy the days leading up to Christmas just as much as I enjoy Christmas Eve and Christmas Day!

This year, December 23rd (Festivus!) was pretty hectic! First of all, WE HAD SCHOOL THAT DAY! The students were dismissed at noon and teachers were dismissed at 1pm, but still... it was an added layer of stress!

(Believe me, I understand that as a teacher I am extremely lucky to not have to work on major holidays and it sounds ungrateful to say it was stressful to work on the 23rd!)

I only taught a couple classes that morning, and everything was very festive. I pulled up a fireplace on Youtube and displayed it on the Smartboard. I turned the lights out when the students came in the room and told them to sit by the "fire" and get warm and cozy!

Then we read The Jolly Christmas Postman, which has nothing to do with music, but I didn't care! It was a special day and I wanted to read it to the students.

Most of the teachers made breakfast for their classroom. The entire school smelled like pancakes and syrup! A lot of teachers were dressed in Christmas garb too!

A first grade teacher, who would like to remain anonymous, said of her pajamas, "It looks like Christmas threw up on me!"

My friend Katrina, our phys ed teacher, won the award for the ugliest sweater!

I wore my red fish net tights for the very first time. Can you believe I have had them for years and hadn't yet come up with the perfect occasion to wear them?

After the students were dismissed, our faculty went up to the middle school to attend a retirement party for our ESL teacher. It was fun to socialize and say goodbye to all of my friends before Christmas break. I don't mention it on my blog a lot, but I truly LOVE the people I work with! They are not just my "work friends" they are MY FRIENDS.

When I got home from work, I had a list of last minute things I had to do to be ready for the whirlwind of the next couple days. This was actually the first moment I started to feel some CHRISTMAS STRESS. I often tell you how Christmas doesn't stress me out because I love it so much, but I will be honest, I felt a twinge of stress and apprehension this afternoon!

Around 3pm, Paul and I headed to Millersburg to visit my Grandma and go out to dinner for my brother's birthday.

My main goal when we visited my grandma was to convince her to come to my parent's house on Christmas Day. Luckily, she agreed to come! We wrote it on her calendar so she wouldn't forget, and then Paul and I sang her Silent Night, which made her cry!

Then we went out to eat at Swing with my parents and my brother Julian and his girlfriend, Amy. When we walked in the restaurant, we saw my high school gym teacher and my first grade teacher having dinner! It was so fun to catch up with them!

It was lovely to be able to celebrate my brother's birthday with him. We hadn't been able to do that as a family for the past several years. We ate good food and then aired our grievances, a la Festivus tradition. 

You know what my grievance is? When people roll up the paper from their straws into little balls. I can't stand to look at those!

After dinner, we got some pictures on the square in Millersburg, which is right across from my parent's house- the house I grew up in. We got some shots on the gazebo and in front of the huge lighted tree in the park.

It was a great day! I was happy to be able to see Millersburg all lit up for Christmas!

Oh, when we were at my mom and dad's house, look what I saw on their refrigerator. Isn't it awesome?

Did you do anything special on the 23rd?
Teachers, when was your last day before break?
Have you heard of Festivus or are you a bit confused?
Air one of your grievances in the comments!